Gilgamesh; Coordinates on pg 20

[sailorseal]

Just a quick note, I like the smears, even though they are big they are creative. I like them

[Merciless Wong]

Missed your 2 neutral city comment so didn't take that into account. Just say with 2 neutral cities out of 8.
Chance of getting 3 or more in 1v1 is huge. In 1v1v1 is still there and 1v1v1v1 may still be there. If gameplay guy raised it, he aint going to forget it.

Intuitively in a 3 player with 6 free each should start with 2 by random chance. Not much of a fluke required for someone to start with one more and get the +1. I'm not even going to run the numbers.

I'd just engage the guy on gameplay to clarify what his tolerence level then craft a solution is rather than redraft & redraft.

Plus I've never played Wales and if you think it is a mess, perhaps you should put that feedback on the Wales forum.

If you have played San Marino or Wales you will know what a mess it is to start on a map that is basically all neutral.

Do you know if neutrals have to be 3 - lots of 1 army neutrals might work. Not too strong, but you can't start with them?
Also what would happen if you coded 3 starting positions of 2 each in 2 player and 3 player on the cities?

[sailorseal]

No idea what are neutrals and what aren't so I 'll refrain from comment. Just say with 2 neutral cities out of 8.
Chance of getting 3 or more in 1v1 is huge. In 1v1v1 is still high and 1v1v1v1 may still be there. If gameplay guy raised it, he aint going to forget it even if you don't get anyone posting about the issue.
Merciless take a look at the current version before you comment, your numbers are off
Plus I've never played Wales and if you think it is a mess, perhaps you should put that feedback on the Wales forum.

[Merciless Wong]

Am a version behind. So numbers are wrong.

[sailorseal]

Am a version behind. So numbers are wrong.

No idea what are neutrals and what aren't so I 'll refrain from comment. Just say with 2 neutral cities out of 8.
Chance of getting 3 or more in 1v1 is huge. In 1v1v1 is still high and 1v1v1v1 may still be there. If gameplay guy raised it, he aint going to forget it even if you don't get anyone posting about the issue.
Merciless take a look at the current version before you comment, your numbers are off
Plus I've never played Wales and if you think it is a mess, perhaps you should put that feedback on the Wales forum.

[Merciless Wong]

???? - said, haven't seen latest version - ?????

Ok 5 cities not neutral. 3 players. Chance of staring bonus =
No of possibilities 3^5 = 243

5 cities one player = 3 possibilities
4 cities one player = 3 ('players) x 5 (city they don't have) x 2(who has city they don't have) = 30 possiblities
3 cities one player = 3 (players) x 5 x 4 x 0.5 (cities they don't have, 0.5 is because order is irrelevant for city that's left out) x 2 x2 ( who has city they don't have) =120 possibilities

Total 153 possibilities. More than 50%

Sounds high but it makes sense when you realise only way no one has bonus is for cities to be distributed 2 -2 -1
3 -1-1 is more likely than you think.

Perhaps code third starting position is solution.

[oaktown]

Perhaps code third starting position is solution.

I've thought about it - in fact I almost did this for my last update - but it would have other side effects. For instance, in a two player game there's no way of knowing which of the three positions the two players will be assigned, and the original intent of assigning two starting positions is to place each player in a 1v1 in Assur. It means giving a player a 1 in 3 chance of starting with both Assur cities, which is worse than if we just let all of the cities be assigned randomly.

But even more important is that I don't much care what happens at the drop in a three player game. If the other two players are on the ball they'll notice the advantage and do something about it; if they aren't they deserve to lose that game. That has nothing to do with luck, it's good play. I'll do what I can to make a map even, but I'm not going to make the map idiot proof!

As for discussing the matter with the gameplay stamper, I am confident that when iancanton stops by the thread he'll give me his informed opinion of the map. I have every ounce of faith in iancanton, just as I am sure that he had great confidence in the fellow who was the "guy on gameplay" for a year before he took the job.

[tlane]

Hey oak,
This is my first time posting on this map, and really looking at the map/thread, so sorry if I repeat something.

Graphically this map looks great. I really like the brick background idea, but there are one or two little tweaks that could be made.
1. There are three red smudges in the bottom right corner, 1 on the "er" of Eridu, one right next two Ur, and one small one next two the numbers on Uruk. (theses may just be my screen)
2. It looks to me like the "number smudge" on Assur is much fainter then the others.
3. Is it possible to move the challenge on Humbaba up about 2 or 3 pixels so it is not in the text.

For gameplay the map seems fine to me, and I am sure Ian will address any problems, if there are any.

Also, this is not that big a deal, but 5 of the 7 cities are a whitish/yellowish color and the other two black. Some people(not many though) may think that there are different bonuses for each color, so this is something you can think about changing(you don't need to)

looking great ,
tlane

[oaktown]

Click image to enlarge.

Thanks to tlane for the comments. Went back to one color for the cities, and cleaned some stuff up. The army smudges were all different somehow - I had gotten sloppy. Same with the red smears.

I played with alternatives to the river crossing spears, but instead decided to just try to work these into the map better. They don't pop out quite so much, and they've been grunged-up so that no two are the same.

[gho]

the brick patterns look too prominent in certain continents (wilds, dilmun etc.) and the ocean/rivers. The brick lines look too straight to be ancient. I like all the icons.

[Incandenza]

Removed the City State from Ur. There are still seven city states so the bonus structure for holding cities isn't disrupted, but it reduces the value of Sumer because now the region doesn't come with an automatic city state bonus

The history weenie in me recoils at the idea, since Ur was pretty much the First City. I know, I know, form follows function, but could possibly Uruk be sacrificed instead?

In 3+ player games there will be 42 territories split up for starts. In 1v1 games each player will start with 14 territories (40÷3+1), and there will be 16 neutral territories. Player 1 (and for that matter player 2) will have an 11% chance of starting the game with the city bonus - those are odds I can live with, especially since player 2 will get to drop 4 armies and try to do something about it.

11% isn't awesome, but you have jumped through an awful lot of hoops to mitigate the chances of a bonus drop... tho it's worth pointing out that if first mover drops the bonus, it's not much of a stretch to think that if he properly utilizes his 5 deployment and gets just a touch north of statistically average dice, the other bloke's at 11 terits and pretty much hosed. What about dropping Karkemish and coding a different city as a neutral start?

Then again, it is 11%... and I feel like it's in bad form for me to excessively nitpick this map for its 1v1 drops when I'll probably never play one on here.

Since I'm already coding start positions, I may as well code two of the challenges as well to avoid anybody starting a 1v1 game with that bonus. It won't affect the number of starting territories/player.

Okay, I'm not the world's foremost authority on starting positions, but wouldn't that just throw 2 more "starting position" terits into the general kitty, thus possibly allowing one player to drop both cities and the other to drop both challenges?

Another thing: that blue mountain in northeast Urkesh looks kinda lonely... unless it's supposed to represent a prominent peak, it could be tucked in a bit.

[oaktown]

Click image to enlarge.

The history weenie in me recoils at the idea, since Ur was pretty much the First City. I know, I know, form follows function, but could possibly Uruk be sacrificed instead?

I was hoping nobody would call me on that. And Uruk can't go, because that's the city of Gilgamesh! Part of me wants to stay true to the epic and put the city on Shurupak rather than Babylon, but people will freak out... what Ive done instead is found a subtle way to represent the flood.

(For those of you who do not know, the biblical story of Noah borrows heavily from the earlier Sumerian epic of Gilgamesh: man had become noisy and was keeping the gods from their rest, so rains were sent down to cover the earth. As the rains began to fall, Enki (the creator of mankind) spoke to the house of Utnapishtim and said to build an ark and secure into it two of each creature on earth. After seven days Utnapishtim sends doves and ravens in search of land, and the ark came to rest on Mt. Nimush.)

Anyway, I've restored the city to Ur, removed the cities from Susa and Mari, eliminated the starts, and simplified the city bonus situation.

For those of you scoring at home, there is now a 7.2% chance that a player will start with four cities in a 2 or 3 player game, and a 3.6% chance that player 1 will start with the bonus in a 1v1; in most maps the odds are similar that somebody get lucky in a 1v1, so let 'em take their chances. There is 3.7% chance that a player will start with the Challenges, and 1.8% that this will be player 1; I don't much give a crap about eliminating a 1.8% chance of something happening, but just for good measure I've dropped the challenges bonus to +1.

Okay, I'm not the world's foremost authority on starting positions, but wouldn't that just throw 2 more "starting position" terits into the general kitty, thus possibly allowing one player to drop both cities and the other to drop both challenges?

Coding starts is always problematic, in that you throw off the total number of territories a player has to open the game. As it is now, Player 1 (in a 1v1 or 3 player game) will bein the game with 14 territories, and a four army first placement (unless he was fortunate enough to drop a region). So unless player 1 somehow manages take three territories from player 2 on that first round (I count account for dice), player 2 will also get a four army first placement and should be able to undo whatever damage player 1 did in the first round. Unless they are stupid, which I also can't account for.

Another thing: that blue mountain in northeast Urkesh looks kinda lonely... unless it's supposed to represent a prominent peak, it could be tucked in a bit.

Fixed.

Also made my sig more cuneiform, and played around with some other little things.

[sailorseal]

I am not sure whether or not you changed the cities but they look better. I don't see why the Bull of Heaven gets it's own kind of smear, if its not to much work I would change it but otherwise its fine.

I really like the GP of this map

[oaktown]

I am not sure whether or not you changed the cities but they look better. I don't see why the Bull of Heaven gets it's own kind of smear, if its not to much work I would change it but otherwise its fine.

It actually doesn't need a smear at all, since the background color of the territory is so light. The old smear was on there, but there were many comments about the fact that it wasn't visible. I just did that to make people happy - personally I'd like to just remove it entirely.

[Incandenza]

Okay, 1v1 bonus drop percentages look good, I like what you've done with the cities (can't believe I forgot that Uruk was ole' Gilgy's city, been awhile since I actually read the damn thing), sig looks good... someone get this map a gameplay stamp, stat!